Cycles
by kuraichocho1013
Summary: A Hotaru songfic


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Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon. There, I said it.

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Cycles

By Kuraichocho1013

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I was stained by a role/ in a day not my own

I'm hot, too hot. Mama, Mama where are you?! Something crashed, exploded, and then, and then, this heat this smoke - I can't breathe, I can't breathe, help me, I'm burning up!! This dress, black velvet, my favorite...Mama, Mama, wake up, it's choking me, the smoke, the smoke it's in my throat, jumping down, down to my belly, HELP… I can't scream can only whisper, wake up please, let me out, get me OUT! I can't, I can't see so clear anymore. Mama, if you're gonna hold my dress, get me out of here, please… Pick me up, PLEASE. I can't move - get your hand OFF of me, WAKE UP!! Oh…Oh…it's all, it's all going…going…going ..fuzzy like, like rainwater on, on the windshield. Papa..Papa…is that you? I can't see, too hot, too hot. I'm falling, falling, falling down, the darkness, oh God…help…me……please… 

That's all I can remember from that day, that awful day. The day my blue sky caved in and crashed, leaving splinters on the floor. Oh, they got me out, they rescued me. But I'm not the same, no no, no, no, no….

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But as you walked into my life

The lights are bright, burning hard into my exposed soul. I lie here naked, the metal table beneath me cold as winter. Who is that man, that awful, creeping shadow-man with the glasses? My arms and legs are all strapped down; I cannot rise to see around this awful room alive with clicks and whirls. But that man, his glasses reflect the brilliant lights onto the shiny metal ceiling above my head. 

Oh, here he is, I know him, that's my papa. Hey, Papa, listen to me. Take me off this table, will ya? Lets go outside where it's warm and sunny. There's not a cloud, not a cloud at all, except - wait. Oh wait, wait, no, this man is not my father, not my papa at all. My father had a soul, my father's eyes were not made of glass. My father never stood above me in a white lab coat, a screwdriver in his hand.

His placid grin, it's his _business_ smile.

Papa, Papa where's my smile, my special smile? The one that's just for me? I can't feel my body, Papa, I'm all cold. Numb. Wait, what are you doing with that tool, that screw driver? You hear me panic, and you _smile_!? Smile straight into my eyes with that funny, false, plaster-grin. No wait, I can still see your hand, with the tool, with that smile, that smile, please stop, **stop**, **NOOO**… 

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You showed what needed to be shown 

"Freak." 

The name is a smack in the face, a hot knife to my gut. The boy shoves me down, down onto the dirty ground. My black tights snag on a piece of broken glass, my head slams into the concrete wall at my back. I look down and see where my clumsy hand has crushed a yellow butterfly into the asphalt. 

The anger rises so fast that I don't even feel it boil before it overflows. 

I take the boy out in one punch; he lies somnolent on the ground, fingers curling out like petals. But then I'm down too, forced to sit on the filthy ground. I'm too weak, this anger is too, too powerful for my fragile body. My torso feels as if it will collapse in on itself at any second. I look up at the blue sky, wanting so desperately to fly away, fly free from all of this. 

But the butterfly is still there, oozing on the tar. 

I'm lost to the rage, the red-hot, purifying anger that pummels my body. But I'm not pure, and this thing inside of me is dirty, is bad, bad, bad, bad….

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And I always knew what was right 

Kaorinite stands tall in front of me, judgement in her chilly blue eyes. My friend has left, sucking the light away with her, a miniature Charybdis. I sit, helpless, in the shattered remains of my favorite tea set. The porcelain can cut, but Kaorinite sears and burns with her stare. 

"You're too weak child," she sneers, "and you know it, too. You'll always be too weak. Now clean it up"

"No," I whisper hoarsely, with all the proud defiance left in my shaking body. The sky is blue behind her. "No, only my FATHER can make me do it. Only-"

"Do it Hotaru." The voice beside her, a robot, gears clicking like beads in a box. One word, one command. "Obey." 

No, not him, not those terrible eyes. Dolls eyes. He stands beside her, puts one arm heavy about her shoulder. He did it. He put this horrible thing in me, he damned me. Those glassy eyes tell all, stories I don't want to know. Am I part of the evil inside?

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I just didn't know that I might/peel away and choose to see/with such a different sight

Oh, she's strong, bone-shattering strong. I wanna give in, give her what remains of my wasted body, my sapped strength. After all, she was inside me for so long, aren't I a part of her evil, sewn on with a thread of steel? 

But I can't, I can't give in.

Mistress Nine, you won't have me. Chibi-usa, she saw something in me, saw a light flicker on then off like a firefly. It's there inside me, it's rising, higher and higher. If I just believe. You've blurred the sun, but the firefly flits on. She brings death, this other one. Holds it close to her heart. 

But her death is different.

I think. No, I know. Leave my body, Nine, and let her IN…

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As the sun shines through it pushes away/and pushes ahead 

Up from the ashes, out of the filth of ages, I come, I rise. You thought I was gone, thought that I was a thing imagined in the deepest, darkest corner of your mind.

But you were wrong.

I have slept for so long in the reliquary of time. But no jewel-incrusted shrine nor tomb shall ever truly cage me, and now I walk in dreams no longer. See my eyes? They have witnessed the crumbling, the complete decimation of a hundred cities. Of loves and of hatreds. My hair is dark, my form a shadow, but my eyes are like a cat's eyes times a thousand. Come to my hand, Glaive, instrument of finality. I am the golden phoenix, the end, the omega. Here comes Saturn…

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It fills the warmth of blue, and leaves a chill instead 

I pause, I breath. The others cower down in fear and dread. Even Pluto, my constant companion through the ages, steps back like a frightened child. I am always the uninvited guest.

Even Time shrinks back from Death.

And that is what I am. The tallest buildings will fall, the ocean will cover the earth, scouring, rinsing, purifying. Then the sun shall set for a final time on a black horizon. Nothing will remain, all will be destroyed. All those who taunted a helpless, breathless child should quiver in their shoes. The irony of this situation is as clear cut as mints in winter. From the meekest among them rose Destruction. 

All the senshi look so sad, their faces falling like dominoes. They expected life, but I came instead.

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And I didn't know that I could be/so blind to all that is so real 

And why should I have thought that they would be happy to see me? A flick of my wrist and it all goes dark one final time. I am death, the ultimate reality. 

From Hotaru's memory slips the image of a yellow butterfly, spread wings torn and oozing on the asphalt. After birth, we are never forced to live, merely to exist, to be. But death is forced, death is the inevitable consequence of life. She hovers over every shoulder in every room, guilefully whispering of termination.

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But as illusion dies/I see there is so much to be revealed 

People forget so easily, you know. They leave the butterfly behind, toss it into the grass and toss away its memory along with its bleeding wings. 

And there is so much that they don't see.

They don't see how it breaks down, how it decomposes. Lends its strength to the black, black earth Don't see the sacred promise made manifest in the bright green grass itself. It dies so that other things may live and flourish. In their turn, these other things will parish and disintegrate as well, and the circle will began anew, stronger each time. 

I may bring a promise of death, but sealed away inside that promise is another oath just as sacred. Pandora shut her down, but I, I release her now to fly free. Hope, what a concept. I twirl my staff, shout out the ancient words. Then I call for the seal that only Pluto can make.

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And I will never see the sky the same way 

It's all collapsing now, the sky shattering in shards like black glass. The stars falling like angels. And Pluto's eyes, so sad, so sad… 

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And I will learn to say goodbye to yesterday 

The door closes, sealed by tears and raw power. I lie alone in the void. 

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And I will never cease to fly if held down

I will be back. Someday, when another new beginning is needed. For now, I've left the promise in the hands of an innocent girl. And Hotaru, she will rise again. I will sleep inside her soul, waiting to be awakened.

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And I will always reach too high

Don't forget me, the fragile flower, the firefly. A flash of light in the darkness, a shout loud enough to quiet the world. Don't you see how softly the last petals fall from the dying flower? How small their gossamer sound even in the stillness? I know them, I know the peace…

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Cause I've seen, I've seen Twilight

And in the darkness of this place, the Silence is beautiful. 

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*Lyrics are from Vanessa Carlton's song "Twilight", found on her album _Be Not Nobody. _Please review!


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